


the static between catastrophes

by zauberer_sirin



Category: Agents of S.H.I.E.L.D. (TV)
Genre: Angst, Episode Tag, F/M, Introspection, Skye's POV, Unresolved Sexual Tension, i could have tagged it GEN but lbh i'm never doing that because these two are always in love, i just had to get a couple of things off my chest, more META than anything i'm sorry, no real Winter Soldier spoilers but vague and ambiguous references to it, post episode, post episode 1x16 End of the Beginning
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2014-04-04
Updated: 2014-04-04
Packaged: 2018-01-18 04:45:25
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,855
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/1415566
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/zauberer_sirin/pseuds/zauberer_sirin
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p><i>They haven't really talked about this, all this, busying themselves with new disasters, and now it comes pouring out, all at once. </i> (spoilers for 1x16 "End of the Beginning")</p>
            </blockquote>





	the static between catastrophes

At some point everything has to slow down.

She is waiting for it, knows they need it, but it frightens her.

She's waiting in the Bus, on the walkway above the lab, almost frightened to be left alone, in the middle of this chaos.

(it doesn't look like chaos, sound like chaos; everything is silent and strangely icy – a million cell phones ringing somewhere, near, but the noise doesn't reach here)

When he comes back from getting an update on their situation his face is very purposely kept neutral, which for Skye means it's not neutral at all. He climbs the stairs and she notices the way he grabs the stairway a bit too tight and his knuckles turn white for a moment.

"How's Agent Blake?" she asks, first of all.

Coulson shakes his head slightly. "Still critical. The doctors said to wait and see."

"I'm sorry," she says, looking down.

"It's not your fault."

"I designed the operation, I can't help but –"

"It was a trap. We couldn't know."

Whose trap and how she's not exactly sure. "Yeah..."

She glances up and Coulson looks really tired. She tries to remember when was the last moment they could just stop and take a breath. She doesn't remember. All she remembers is Ward and May and Fitz, and everything after. Having to explain themselves to Victoria Hand. 

Finding out the world was a different place from what they had imagined.

At some point everything has to slow down.

This is it. Standing on the walkaway, their backs against the wall, looking at what seems like an emptied empire. Coulson has his arms crossed, and she has her face turned towards him.

"We haven't had the time to – process things, I guess."

"We have to focus on the mission at hand, or we're bound to go crazy," Coulson says, like he doesn't want to start this conversation.

Like he knows exactly what kind of conversation Skye is trying to steer him towards right now.

She knows he's right: focus on helping Ward, on finding the Clairvoyant. _Helping Ward_... (her stomach drops when she remembers what happened). Every other thing feels too big right now. Too big to tackle, certainly too big to even think about.

"What's on your mind?" Coulson asks, because that's what she wants.

"You want to talk about what Nash, or the Clairvoyant, or whoever, said to you? About me dying, knowing it was your fault?" She very intently leaves the most frightening part of those words, but includes the worst.

"What about it?"

Skye swallows. This is not morbid curiosity, except it is. It's also filling in the gaps. She wants to see him as a complete picture. So she asks: "Were you the one who found me, in that basement, in Quinn's villa?"

"Skye..."

"You were. Weren't you? I'm so sorry, I had no idea, I can't remember anything after Quinn shot me."

"I'm glad you don't have to," he tells her, and she finds him a bit too sincere, she fights the urge to bite her lower lip, the weight of it a bit too much.

"Why didn't you tell me, that you found me?"

Coulson closes his eyes for a moment. She watches his shoulders, down, he's trying to make himself smaller.

"What did it matter?" he asks.

And it doesn't, or if it does it's not in a way Coulson can understand.

Skye makes a very conscious decision to turn the corners of her mouth up, in an attempt to keep her voice from breaking, a voice which comes from her lungs more than anything: "You held me in your arms?"

He doesn't reply, can't reply, she doesn't really expect him to.

They haven't really talked about this, _all this_ , busying themselves with new disasters, and now it comes pouring out, all at once. 

"I'm sorry," she says again, knowing how infuriating it must be to hear it. "I should have – I should have never walked in there alone, I know that."

"Apparently your choice didn't matter," he tells her flatly. "They would have found another way."

Skye tries to remember what happened, has been trying, ever since she woke up. The last thing she remembers, the last blurry, painful memory she has is of the effort it took to open the basement door, the sharp bite of pain fighting against the lull of blood-loss exhaustion. She has the vague memory of asking for help, her voice useless and drowned, drowning – she feels guilty realizing she was probably asking for Coulson.

"You know it wasn't true, whatever the Clairvoyant said, that it was your fault, that I would ever think it was your fault."

"It wasn't my fault. But you still got shot _because_ of me."

He says it like he is not sure there's a difference.

She knew, of course she knew already – that he blames himself, and that he probably believes that, on a subconscious level, Skye does too. She didn't need Nash or the Clairvoyant or anyone to tell her. She doesn't pretend it wasn't shocking to hear it anyway.

There's a logic here, it's not some misguided overprotectiveness on Coulson's side what makes him think it's his fault, but the hard facts of the _cause_ of it. While Skye cannot fault him the feeling she also knows it will do nothing but isolate him. Isolate him from her, and that's not something they can afford right now.

She sounds calm when she tells him this.

"I appreciate you feel responsible but this is not about that. We're in the same boat, this is happening to both of us. I'm not some passive _thing_ that needs to be locked away and protected. The Clairvoyant can threaten all he wants – you can't make me into the cause for your guilt, or Ward for his anger."

Coulson looks at her in slight shock at her tone, then nods, apologetic.

She's in danger, of course, but they all are. 

She's in danger, of course, but the thing is they don't have to protect her, they have to find out _why_.

You can't do this without me, Skye thinks. And you doing this without me won't save me either. The only thing that's going to save me is – me.

Coulson straightens up, no longer leaning against the wall. He turns to face her, a new energy in his voice.

"Ward told you his buttons were pushed, back in that room," he comments. "But the Clairvoyant was taunting me, too, when he said he was going to have you killed."

She gives him a confused expression. "I know."

"I might not have put a bullet in his chest, but it had an effect."

"I _know_ that. Did you think I wouldn't know?"

"It has no strategic value, letting it get to us. We would have been playing right into his hands – specially if it turns out that we had the wrong man."

He is trying to tell her something, he's rarely been this insistent in their conversations, and Skye suspects what it is, but she can't believe Coulson would consider for a moment that she thinks like that. She can't believe _he_ thinks like that. They both understand the line between emotional and useless – Skye herself, after all, had punched Raina in the face but even that had had strategic value at the time (apart from being satisfying in ways Skye cannot comprehend), she was in the way.

"Whatever they did to Ward to make him shoot Nash like that... it was obviously the wrong thing for him to do, in any circumstance," she says. "We know that, that's what worries me. I wouldn't kill a defenseless man like that, you wouldn't."

"No, I wouldn't," Coulson says. He doesn't sound regretful at the realization exactly, more like unsure of how it's seen. "When he said you had something they wanted, and you were going to give it to them..."

Skye grimaces. "Yeah, talk about creepy. Creepi _er_."

"I didn't react in any–"

She doesn't let him go on. She bats his explanations away with a glare.

"Look, I couldn't see your face at that moment, but I have a pretty good idea of what hearing those words must have been like... Because I imagined how _I_ would have felt, if we had swapped places, if I had gone down to that room and heard the Clairvoyant say you were going to die and I couldn't do anything about it."

She rests her hand on his forearm, a ghost touch, fingers barely curling around it. It's not usual between them and she withdraws the touch after a fleeting moment, shy. But it's enough for comfort and something relaxes in Coulson's posture after she does it, less hunched now, less on edge.

She goes on, her voice energetic and brighter, but taut.

"By the way, next time _I am_ going to go down into that room. I didn't enjoy being left behind in the van." His face looks like he is about to say something. Skye raises her hand. "And don't give me that _it's too dangerous_ crap. Because Ward is an experienced field agent, and look what happened with that. It's my mission, too, I have the right to see it through, on the field, just like you. Also, I'm very sorry I said _crap_ , sir."

He gives her the tiniest smile but he nods again and acquiesces. The mood has lifted definitely now – they both find it necessary and even soothing, this switching between station, it doesn't make their serious moments less honest, or their lighter moments less organic.

"I didn't give you a badge so you could talk back to me like this," he tells her.

She crosses her arms in front of her chest, a haughty expression. "You didn't give it to me. I _earned_ it."

He makes a soft snort-like noise at the back of his throat.

"I should have known you'd be insufferable about it."

Everything slows downs, and maybe it is enough to be here for a moment, and together against what's coming, because they know soon –too soon– they'll have to get back to work. And the work this time might be more than they can handle.

So Skye commits this moment to memory, the sound of his voice when he's caught off guard, she will remember this moment so the next time they're in a place when she has to ask herself _when was the last time that..._ at least she will have this memory.

They look down at the cargo area. The silence in the Bus is eerie. There is activity around it, but the plane itself rests as if dead.

Skye asks: "What's going to happen now?"

Meaning: _what are we going to do now?_ Meaning she doesn't want to think about Ward, or the Clairvoyant, or May, or SHIELD. Meaning she can't think about anything else.

"We'll have to wait and see," he replies.

"I've never been too good at waiting," Skye says, shrugging.

The corner of Coulson's mouth curls into a smirk. "I know."

She will remember this moment, too.


End file.
